Wolf Like Me
by lady-adonis
Summary: Eames wakes up in a desolate, dark room somewhere underground and he's only a few minutes from death. Lying on the floor with a broken everything and a head injury, he recalls his life and the decisions that led him there.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I do not own Inception. This story came about whilst listening to TV On the Radio and resting with a broken arm. Enjoy.**

There was a distinct smell in the air.

Something like cigarettes, Calvin Kline cologne, and herbal tea. Each smell was different and conflicting and together, they smelt like something horridly and painfully beautiful. Something of accuracy. They all smelt like the three people he trusted most.

_Cigarettes._

That stinky, smokey smell reminded him of the tall and slender red head who occupied most of his time. Tracey. She wasn't nice and that was nice to him.

_Cologne_

The sweet and strong stench sent electric currents to his brain which played out a memory involving shiny FBI shoes, Armani suits and a pair of brown eyes, hard and intense. Arthur.

_Herbal tea._

The green herbs reminded him of how hot and stinky his mouth felt and what he wouldn't do for a pack of spearmint gum to cure the stench that was no different than morning breath, but they also reminded him of his dead mother. Angela. The drunken apparition of a mom that should have taken her place.

How all three of these scents came together, he had no idea. He figured the blunt object being beaten against his skull was sending mixed signals to his brain. Tracing back old memories and putting them here in this room where he was only one ounce of blood away from dying. He prayed the next beating would come soon. Then he wouldn't be able to feel the seemingly perpetual dizziness that was making his brain sway like the palm trees in Florida during a tornado. He felt more inebriated than he had all those times he did things beyond his age under bleachers with Tracey, more confused than he had when Arthur sent jabs at his stomach for reasons unknown and more hurt than the he was the very last moments he had spent with his mother.

As he lied there on that stone cold, poor excuse for a floor, he thought of all the things he had heard about heartbreak. How his mother used to say that he could be beaten to a point of no return, and that pain would still not beat your heartbreak. He used to believe that, but now he just feels like his mother never had her ribs bruised or shins broken.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: I do not own Inception. This story came about whilst listening to TV On the Radio and resting with a broken arm. Enjoy.**

**December**

It's cold.

He'd always believed that he'd die in the wrong place at the wrong time without a doubt engaging in the wrong activity. But this scenario seems all too right.

Up to a week ago, he couldn't feel anything. He hadn't made plans for anything or accessed any branch that would lead him to his future, however dark or bright (he accepted the formal with no problem). In other words, he hadn't felt inspired or motivated by anything life had to offer.

It's clear now that this was because life had nothing else to offer.

The cementish ground he lays on is freezing and he wants to move, wants to wrap his arms around himself, wants to get up and crawl away, but he can't. Everything, practically everything is broken. He can't feel anything, not even his head.

He wonders briefly where the others might be, but the thought of it quickly leaves his mind as he knows that it's better to forget them all together in his last few moments. There's nothing he can do about it. They're all screwed, but he's fucked.

He can hear the dripping, the leaking pipes, onto the ground. Cold and wet and falling onto his death bed which will in all likelihood would end up his grave. No one was going to find him there. The people who did this to him were sure of that, they calculated with accuracy and precision every step they took toward his incarceration. They not only buried him in the deepest, darkest, coldest hole that they were creatively and inellectually capable of harnessing, but buried him in their thoughts. No one would _ever _find out about this. He would die here alone. Suddenly, the dripping sounds beautiful.

He wants to scream. It's a dumb idea, he knows, but he wants to. To know if anyone could hear him. If, by some erratic chance, he wouldn't die like this. In this hole. But he knows that dwelling on the idea would just sadden him. He'd already accepted it. Death seemed like such a far fetched idea, but was in reality closer than anything. Closer than the most competent of lovers, closer than a mother bearing her child, closer and closer and closer.

His bones feel like...well, he can't feel them at all. But he knows that he's in serious pain. He knows that the hospitals would put him in the ICU and operate on him for hours. He would be, had he been hospitalized, in critical condition for a long time. If the others were still alive and well, they would have been the ones to find him and they would wait anxiously in the waiting room. Ariadne wouldn't cry, but she'd secretly want to and Arthur would watch her with worry. But then it wouldn't really be a secret because he knew what she felt. The man had every motion and notion of hers memorized and he knew what she would do or say about something often before she did herself.

_Pow! Boom! Bang! And whatever other onamotapia there was for the sound of gunshots infiltrated his ears with clarity. The shots echoed through the parking garage and he could hear some poor guy's car being shot up to pieces. Next to him, Ariadne rested her head against the car door, gripping her pistol tight but steady. He fired another shot toward the unknown enemy behind the opposing car and..._

_**Click.**_

_Ariadne looked up at him with intense eyes then down at his gun. "You're out?" She asked breathlessly, her voice exceedingly nervous._

_He nodded once sliding down and finally giving into the pain in his shoulder which had been shot twenty gunshots ago._

_She reached into her waistband and pulled out a second gun. She checked if it was loaded then looked back at him._

_"Up against the wall," she directed, "Put dual pressure on it. Front and back."_

_She stood up and he instantly felt alarmed. Was she crazy?_

_"What are you doing?"_

_"Shut up," she said quickly before walking to the other car. She fired two shots with her right gun and three from the left._

_She walked back over to him and pulled him to his feet. She looked left and right. "We need a car."_

_He smiled smugly and let her drag him up the levels. "So, you and Arthur, huh?"_

_She looked at him, her eyes hard. "What?"_

_"Last time I saw you, pet, you barely knew your ass from an AK," he chuckled. "Is that what you were doing in Italy? That is the city of love, isn't it? No, that's Paris..._That's _what Arthur was doing there! You-"_

_"Eames," she stopped him. "Stop. Now's not the time nor place."_

_He pressed. "I'm just saying. The last time I saw you, very last time, you were incapable of properly handling a simple can of pepper spray and now you know how to shoot right to the point. If that wasn't Arthur's doing then I don't know what is. It's almost like-"_

_The sound of her gun firing echoed through the garage and he quickly ceased talking._

_Ariadne managed to find a car, something inconspicuous, and very swiftly, and very professionally, managed to upstart the engine. She made sure he was tucked into his seat, even using his tie as a tourniqutte and wrapping it tightly on his wound._

_Then they sped away, looking for the beginning of this trap._


End file.
